MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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Hillary Rodham Clinton

A master stroke

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Let’s give the McCain campaign credit for one thing: They sure know how to steal the Democrats’ thunder.

Democrats dominated the nation’s attention this week with their convention, culminating with their historic affirmation of Barack Obama as the first African-American to nominated for president by a major political party. Sen. Obama punctuated that with what has been generally hailed as a successful acceptance speech in front of some 80,000 rapturous supporters in Denver last night.

It was, in short, a very good week for Democrats.

The Republicans, who hold their convention next week, have detonated a political bombshell that will sweep away attention from Democrats and undercut some of the historic nature of Obama’s ascent with their pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate. More than the obvious ploy of picking a woman in hope of stealing some of the still miffed supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, it is the attention-grabbing nature of the pick that is astounding.

I am not saying that Gov. Palin is either qualified to be president, or that she is a good pick for Sen. John McCain. I am saying that for today, at least, she helps Republicans shift attention for the Democratic ticket.

The incredible thing is that Palin exposes a significant weakness in the Democratic ticket. McCain’s pick of Palin shows now that Obama was not wise to pick Joe Biden as his running mate. Those disaffected Hillary voters can now vote for the McCain-Palin ticket in some good conscience. The Republicans found a woman who was good enough when Democrats couldn’t. I’m not saying Obama should have picked Hillary. But she is not the only woman in the country.

By not picking Kathleen Sebelius or any of the number of qualified women around this nation, Obama left the door open for McCain to make this play.

Some of abhorrently sexist manner in which Hillary was treated during the primaries and caucuses, especially by the media, has pissed off a sizeable number of her supporters.

That Palin is a conservative Christian who is anti-choice and disagrees with Hillary on virtually every issue is not lost on me. Her supporters have a legitimate grievance that the Obama campaign did not pay enough attention to. Now Democrats may pay in November. I just know that women will now vote for the Republican tickets in some states in numbers significant enough to make a difference come Nov. 4.

August 29, 2008
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Hillary’s speech

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Hillary needed to do three things last night:

(1) Tell her supporters not to vote for John McCain
(2) Tell her supporters why they should vote Democrat.
(3) Tell her supports why they should support Obama, in particular.

In my view, Hillary did the first two and didn’t even attempt the third. Her rationale for why to support Obama was nothing more than “He’s the Democratic nominee.” She delivered that message well and with sincerity, but she fell short of offering a compelling reason to vote for the Obama/Biden ticket.

Hillary could have, in a paragraph or less, done precisely what Joe Biden did on Saturday. Biden said that he had observed Obama over the course of the campaign and had come away impressed. That’s all Hillary had to say. but she didn’t. She also did nothing to disavow her comments about Obama that the McCain camp is running in anti-Obama ads.

I suspect that the speech will convince all but the lunatic fringe of her supporters not to vote for McCain. But I don’t think she convinced very many people to vote for Obama. Expect a lot of extreme Clintonites to stay home on Election Day.

Cross-posted from Facebook.

August 27, 2008
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Hillary was right!

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Open hearts and minds: The good people of West Virginia

In other words:
You elites look down on us white people, thinking you’re better than us, thinking, like, just because we didn’t go to no college, you can put a black man over us. Well, ain’t you precious.
All I got is my vote and I’m going to give it to whoever I wanna give it to, even if it’s somebody who’s gonna do me harm, take away my rights, and do things to hurt me and my family. It’s my God-given right as an American.
Wake up, white people! They’re about to make a black man the president of these United States! Lord Help Us!
May 14, 2008
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Noonan: 'Damsel of Distress'

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I am sorry to say this but I hate Peggy Noonan. She helped propagate evil policies under the elder Bush. She continues to play a corrosive role in American public life with her column on the Opinion-Editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. But, in today’s paper, she rightly excoriates Hillary Rodham Clinton for her absurd argument that Sen. Barack Obama could not get white votes in the general election against Sen. John McCain.

The Democratic Party can’t celebrate the triumph of Barack Obama because the Democratic Party is busy having a breakdown. You could call it a breakdown over the issues of race and gender, but its real source is simply Hillary Clinton. Whose entire campaign at this point is about exploiting race and gender.

* * *

In case you didn’t get what was behind that exchange, Mrs. Clinton spent this week making it clear. In a jaw-dropping interview in USA Today on Thursday, she said, “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.” As evidence she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, “found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

White Americans? Hard-working white Americans? “Even Richard Nixon didn’t say white,” an Obama supporter said, “even with the Southern strategy.”

If John McCain said, “I got the white vote, baby!” his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party.

Or, as Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post said in a post title The Card Clinton Is Playing:

Read More

May 9, 2008
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Toast*

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Not too long ago, my opponent made a prediction. He said I would probably win Pennsylvania, he would win North Carolina, and Indiana would be the tiebreaker.

Well, tonight we’ve come from behind, we’ve broken the tie, and, thanks to you, it’s full speed onto the White House.

–Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, after getting shellacked in North Carolina but winning the Indiana primary in a squeaker.

I think most people know to verify every word that comes out of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s mouth but, what is she smoking? Onto the White House? Not as the Democratic Party nominee, she doesn’t. Maybe she is planning a third party bid, which I won’t put past her.

May 7, 2008
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What groove?

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How Bill Clinton Got His Groove Back says the headline to an Adam Nagourney piece of hagiography on the website of The New York Times (I don’t know if it ran in the paper, or is slated to run tomorrow). My question is this: Did the former president get his groove back, or is the Times news pages continue a pattern of trying to prop up the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign by overstating things?

I cannot really say when it started but, recently, the news pages has been turning itself into pretzel spinning any news development into something positive for HRC.

They’ve, meanwhile, done the opposite for Sen. Barack Obama, covering his campaign as a constant crisis.

Just when the paper’s editorial pages was beginning to recognize its error in backing HRC and beginning to take a more even-handed tack to the campaign, the news pages has gone in the opposite direction by becoming more subjective.

This primary battle will end one day. The Times, as it almost always does, will regain its bearings. I cannot wait for either day.

May 5, 2008
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A Well-liked Gentleman

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In the remaining days before Super Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), is reaping endorsements like they’re going out of style. What I know is that, whether this pushes him over the hump in California or not, this is impressive. The L.A. Times said this in its endorsement:

An Obama presidency would present, as a distinctly American face, a man of African descent, born in the nation’s youngest state, with a childhood spent partly in Asia, among Muslims. No public relations campaign could do more than Obama’s mere presence in the White House to defuse anti-American passion around the world, nor could any political experience surpass Obama’s life story in preparing a president to understand the American character. His candidacy offers Democrats the best hope of leading America into the future, and gives Californians the opportunity to cast their most exciting and consequential ballot in a generation.

Wow! The Times finishes with this little ditty:

In the language of metaphor, Clinton is an essay, solid and reasoned; Obama is a poem, lyric and filled with possibility. Clinton would be a valuable and competent executive, but Obama matches her in substance and adds something that the nation has been missing far too long — a sense of aspiration.”

Poor Hillary Clinton, (D-N.Y.). So she’s dutiful but stodgy and uninspiring. I mean it’s not as bad as what her rabid enemies usually say about her, but still . . . Imagine being married to that famous Cassandra, Bill Clinton? But to then run against Obama is worse than unfair. It’s cruel. Let’s say she wins the nomination (because, despite all the kudos Obama is getting, he still faces what seems like insurmountable odds). How do you run for the whole enchilada (with the tsunami of filth that the Republicans are readying to throw at you) knowing you ain’t the prettiest belle at the ball? You failed the inspiration test?

Wait. There’s more. La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the country, which is based in Los Angeles, also gave Obama its endorsement. Although the paper called Hillary “extraordinary,” it knocked her for being “calculating” in opposing to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, the paper could not find enough nice things to say about Obama on immigration:

It is this commitment to the immigration issue which drove Obama to condemn the malicious lies made during the immigration debate, to understand the need for driver’s licenses, and to defend the rights of undocumented students by co- authoring the DREAM Act.

And, oh yes, they also think Obama is inspiring:

We need a leader today that can inspire and unite America again around its greatest possibilities. Barack Obama is the right leader for the time. We know that he is not as well known among our community and while he has the support of Maria Elena Durazo, Senator Gil Cedillo and others he comes to the Latino community with less name recognition. Nevertheless, it is Obama who deserves our support.

I have a radical proposal: Why not make Obama president and Hillary the prime minister. Someone’s got to run the country while Obama bats his eyes at its people, inspiring them.

February 2, 2008
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Statue Unveiled, Hil Hails Eleanor

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October 6, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and DON SINGLETON Daily News Staff Writers

Two American First Ladies came together in Riverside Park yesterday afternoon, one the current occupant of the White House and the other a larger-than-life bronze statue.

With songs and speeches and flags that rippled gently in the sunshine of a perfect early autumn day, Hillary Rodham Clinton led a crowd of thousands in dedicating the statue of her predecessor Eleanor Roosevelt.

The sculpture, portraying the lanky Roosevelt leaning against a rock, her chin resting on her hand as if she is in deep thought, stands on a low rise in the park’s 72d St., bounded by three mature trees and between two park benches. It is the first statue of a woman ever commissioned for a city park.

Clinton was greeted by a crescendo of applause and cheers from the audience as about a dozen placard-carrying people chanted, “Stop the welfare cuts.” The demonstrators were hustled off by police and park security officers. From the window of an apartment on W. 72d St., someone unfurled a banner that proclaimed, “Eleanor would have saved the safety net.”

A chorus of boos greeted Mayor Giuliani, but quickly subsided when he bagan to speak about Eleanor Roosevelt, a mother of five who was born on W. 37th St., married on E. 76th St. and kept a home on E. 65th St.

The mayor called Roosevelt “a great American, a woman committed to public service, the First Lady of the world. . . . one of the greatest figures in our century.”

“I must say that when the statue was unveiled I had just a great overwhelming emotional feeling,” Clinton said.

Then, after a long pause, she made a self-mocking reference to Bob Woodward’s book “The Choice,” in which the author reports that she took part in imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi.

“And I have to tell you that when I last spoke with Mrs. Roosevelt she wanted me to tell all of you how pleased she is by this great, great new statue.” The crowd applauded wildly.

October 6, 1996
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